Cone Health
The Challenge
As an early adopter of IV automation technology to support in-house sterile compounding, Cone Health originally implemented Omnicell's IV Compounding Service (IVCS) with two i.v.STATION robots in 2019. Following impressive initial results, including enhanced IV compounding accuracy and a stabilized supply of ready-to-administer (RTA) drugs, Cone Health added a third i.v.STATION robot to support production demand.
Driven by its core value to provide quality, compassionate care in a safe, respectful environment, Cone Health sought to continually improve the performance particularly when it came to inventory and expiration date management efficiency. Furthermore, the provider wanted to ensure it was well-positioned to not only comply with but exceed the new USP Chapter <797> guidelines for sterile preparations.
The Solution
To achieve these objectives, Cone Health expanded its IVCS partnership with Omnicell, replacing two of its existing robots with two of Omnicell's new IVX Station models. Like its predecessor, the IVX Station is designed for fully automated compounding of IV syringes and bags, leveraging barcode scanning, gravimetric and volumetric verification, and auto labeling for all compounded sterile preparations.
"The IV robots themselves provide astounding technology to achieve compounding safety and accuracy," says Austin Price, Pharmacy Manager at Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital. "With the upgrade, we were focused more on enhancing operational efficiencies by taking greater advantage of the automation at our disposal."
The Impact
The new robots were instrumental in helping Cone Health, a Category 3 compounding facility, improve the health network's production process. Instead of creating large quantities of on-hand stock to meet patient care needs, the increased compounding speed of the IVX Station allowed Cone Health to monitor and respond to care demands in near real-time, improving resource management and reducing waste.
By expanding its collaboration with Omnicell's team of experts, Cone Health was able to achieve incremental improvements in other areas as well. For example, Cone Health worked closely with Omnicell to design custom drug labels to provide consistent, Cone Health branded preparations to their providers that helped reduce medication errors while reinforcing the network's commitment to IV consistency, reliability, and self-reliance.
Cone Health's access to the engineers and career clinical and compounding pharmacists within its Omnicell support team has been vital to helping the provider navigate USP <797> guidelines while continually adopting new RTA syringe protocols.
"Our Omnicell team supports our pursuit of compliance through the development of new training modules, environmental monitoring standards, stability study development and implementation, and more," says Price. "When you have that type of expertise in place, you gain confidence that you have all the input necessary to execute on a new preparation." Ultimately, Cone Health's IV automation upgrade is aligned to its commitment to provide exceptional patient care through safety accuracy, and consistency.
"While compounding robotics does provide some supply chain and cost savings benefits for Cone Health, our primary objective for adopting the technology is patient care and safety," says Price. "Our business model for advancing our operations is to create a safer compounding environment for our pharmacists and patients and IV automation technology is central to that."
Visit Omnicell.com/IV-Room to learn more today.